Lists of ideas for keeping a visual journal

http://www.busywomen.com.au/visual_journal.htm

A 2 Z Project.

My brain occasionally goes into over-drive! I needed another project like I need a root canal! But when Lynne Perrella's book, "al.pha.bet.i.ca" arrived I couldn't help myself! My work was already leaning in the direction of using alphabet letters and words on the pages in my journal, so why not do an in-depth exploration? After all I'm already working on a self-portrait journal along with a Paris one, plus my work-in-progress art journal and lest I forget, two RR type journals so why not fit in another project? Who needs to be sane?

"Decay" (collage above) doesn't seem to stand on its own as well as it plays off of the page to the left of it. Copyright rules being what they are I can't post that journal page.There are a lot of techniques and ideas on this journal page but I'll only comment on a few. The surface is a foreign text page with gesso over water color crayon. Newspaper words and text. Transparency of eyes. The main focus is fat chunky foam letters that were traced onto the center of the page. GPG, is a play on my initials and the town I live in which is often referred to simply as PG. The letters were traced with a pen and filled-in with oil pastels. I wasn't happy with the result so a layer of metallic wax was used to soften the harsh colors, but that wasn't pleasing either so I used a paper towel to scrap off the wax and to my delight some of the oil pastels scraped off of the paper allowing some of the foreign text to show through. Newspaper text was torn and glued over the hole in the "P."

Climbing out of the "precious mode."

I'm particularly fond of this print lift created from an image taken at a car museum on Cape Cod. I have a "copy" of it; the original now resides in France. One of the benefits of photo manipulated images is that there are endless possibilities for using them.

I'm at odds with myself! While I tend to use some of the same images over-and-over I'm attempting to climb out the "precious mode" phobia. Keeping ephemera in boxes tends to put limits on collages or other work that could benefit from releasing them into the light of day! A stash is a good thing to build up, but not horde! Originals, given away freely will create space for more!

Blogs of interest

Visual Chronicles
http://visualchronicles.typepad.com/

Zura's
http://blogging.spiritimagination.com/

Sonji - mostly fabric
http://sonjisays.blogspot.com/

Ginger - one of the first members of ExpressionVillage!
http://gingerfied.blogspot.com/

Penny - another member of EV who joined in the early days!
http://backvalleyseasons.blogspot.com/

Susan - another long-time member of EV!
http://aqg.bravejournal.com/index.php

Mum's Place

Mum's Place is a furniture store just off of the main street in Pacific Grove where I purchased a couch and a chair about 6 years ago.The cats immediately claimed the chair as theirs! Who is going to argue with two large furkids that leave behind a large amount of their gorgeous fur as a reminder that they have dibs on the chair? Anyone who sits in the chair ends up with their backside covered with cat hair.

I was driving past Mum's Place this afternoon on my way to the yarn shop is search of green fibers when out of the corner of my eye I saw deep strong shadows on the side of the building. Happily I had my digital with me! Of course I had to manipulate the image a little bit. Everyone driving down the street couldn't figure out why I was standing between parked cars taking photos of the tree; one car nearly rear-ended another one trying to figure it out. Their loss!

Self-portrait series

SP Study - Photoshop brushes created from photographs. An image of a birdhouse my father built about a decade ago was manipulated using numerous filters as a basis for the background.

Matthew

Matthew - 3 days old. I absolutely can't leave a photograph alone without manipulating it in some way! Even when I worked in black-and-white I'd spend hours in the darkroom playing with alternative processes!

I kind of like how his mouth runs right into his shoulder line; makes the photo more interesting to me. One of his hands always manages to snake its way into a sleeve.